


one more day

by AnguishofMyLove



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Reincarnation, not a viking!Hiccup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnguishofMyLove/pseuds/AnguishofMyLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giddily, he unthinkingly opens his windows wide, letting the bitter cold air in, and shouts, “sir Frost?” taking note of the pants the figure has on.</p><p>--</p><p>Three snapshots of Hiccup's life with a Jack Frost and one of after.<br/>(sorry for sucky summary)</p>
            </blockquote>





	one more day

**Author's Note:**

> laksndgoias idk how to make a summary of this?? or a nice title??????
> 
> also i wrote this last night whereas i also fell asleep midway and kind of just...continued it when i woke up an hour later. this is probably really sucky because i sleepily wrote it and i may have read it over just a while ago, but i didn't really edit it much
> 
> v.v

Hiccup wakes up one night. The windows are shut but he can see snow being blown by the wind and he imagines the billows of the air and the rustles of the leaves and the tap-tap-tapping of the branches on the houses and roofs and walls. He gets down the bed, little feet making a small  _thump_  as he drops, and shuffles to his window. The glass is cold to touch, causing a shiver to travel up his arm, down his back. Closer now, Hiccup thinks the snow is dancing. The flakes glitter against the night sky and it is then he remembers the poem his mother read to him.

Hiccup begins to excitedly look around, trying to catch the Frost. It is late at night and while the sky is no longer clear, he remembers going to sleep with a black, shimmering, open sky, and the snow littering his pane is a clear sign that he has passed, or is very near. The little boy hopes hopes hopes that he has not passed yet, that he will still come, and he gives himself a pat in the back because he did not turn off his lights, so he could not have scared the fairy(? Or perhaps he remembers wrong) painting the town with diamonds.

He suddenly remembers that the Frost is said to steal food from those who sleep, and he wonders if he should go down to check their kitchen. Perhaps it is he who steals the muffins! But before young Hiccup goes for the door, out of the corner of his eyes he sees a figure twirling in the air.

Giddily, he unthinkingly opens his windows wide, letting the bitter cold air in, and shouts, “sir Frost?” taking note of the pants the figure has on.

The boy—perhaps—somehow stumbles in the air, and whips his head this way and that. The boy does not see him, it seems, because he shakes his head and bends his knees, as if preparing to fly away, and Hiccup hurriedly calls out, “sir Frost!” again, waving his chilling arms in the air.

The boy finally spots him and Hiccup notices how his whole body seems to suddenly freeze up. Before he can think to put a reason for the response (perhaps he is not meant to be seen, after all, he works in the night, and his existence is but one made from words), the boy is suddenly in front of him, and Hiccup is disconcerted.

“You can see me,” Frost rushes out, words mangling in a way that couldn’t have formed a question if he tried, “you  _know_  me.”

Hiccup can see up close that the Frost, with his pale, white skin, and his rough-smooth features, and his bright blue eyes, really does seem like a fairy, and wonder fills his little boy heart. “I do,” he answers, a delighted smile on his lips. “My mom has read to me about you, sir Frost.”

A smile  _lights_  up his whole face, wide and open and joyous, and a breath of laughter escapes his throat in amazement. “Just call me Jack,” he breathes, eyes crinkling at the edges.

* * *

When Jack lands on the red-brown roof, he hooks feet on the tiles and swings down, his shirt rising up, or rather down, to his chest. He sees Hiccup sitting on his bed, face almost pensive and a spinning top cradled on his hands. Jack knocks on the glass and watches as the young boy startles at the sound. When he looks up, his lips break into a smile for him but Jack can see something in his eyes. Jack hoists himself up by his feet and legs when Hiccup opens his window. He’s quick to go in and shut the window, Hiccup’s arms have been starting to grow thin now and he knows that this means he’s easier to get cold. Jack would rather not have Hiccup in discomfort.

Jack catches sight again of the top, held closely to Hiccup’s front. He bends down and brushes his fingers against the wood. “Is this yours?”

Hiccup looks down and his thumb sweeps the same path Jack’s fingers did. “It was Astrid’s. But she might’ve given it to me?” he trails off, shrugging his shoulders. “She spun it to me and left me her string. It might be mine, now.” He bites his lip.

Jack raises a brow in response. The name is familiar, Hiccup’s talked about her before, maybe last year.

Hiccup moves back to his bed and sits down and Jack follows him. His other hand goes up to cup the top and he looks just like he did before Jack knocked.

“She lost her mother and brother a few weeks ago.”

Jack’s breath gets stuck.

Hiccup purses his lips. “Perhaps two weeks ago? Possibly two weeks and a half?” His head drops an inch and his fingers trail across the surface of the toy, tracing invisible patterns and making imaginary designs. The night is quiet, or maybe it only is for Jack, for normally even the snow talks to him and right now, the only thing he can hear is each breath that travels up his lungs, through his throat, pushing through his nose, and whistling away to the cold night air.

Hiccup looks up at Jack. “I never once see her cry,” he tells the winter spirit, one side of his mouth quirking up humorlessly. The look on his face makes Jack squirm. “I’ve seen her sad, I’ve seen her mourn, but she never once shed a tear.”

Jack moves nearer to the boy, bending down to sit next to him with an arm thrown ‘carelessly’ behind Hiccup’s back, arm pushing against the cloth of his shirt, as if to ground him (and Jack doesn’t know if him is he or him is Hiccup).

“Her mother and her brother were both caught in a storm and they went downhill, or went uphill,” Hiccup starts. “No one could have truly said. But the next morn, the others came downhill and found them both on the ground, wounded and dead, the rain having washed away most of their blood with a trail obvious of their fall.”

Jack leans closer so that his side is nearly touching Hiccup’s, his one arm still pressed along the back of Hiccup’s spine. Hiccup’s face turns slightly towards Jack’s, still bowed down.

Hiccup stays quiet, as if in commemoration, before he breathes, “Astrid didn’t show for a few days, but friends visited their home. Astrid looked barely alive but there was never a time when anyone caught her with irritated eyes.”

Hiccup purses his lips. “It was like she had no life enough in her to cry.” He breathes out, as if he only just then thinks it, and Jack’s fingers twitch.

Hiccup shakes his head. “But it was no more than a few days,” he murmurs. “She quickly went back to going outside. I catch her, here and there. Walking along the streets, sitting by the fields, talking, playing,  _being_.” He juggles the top in his hands. “Sometimes I look at her and it’s like the light in her eyes died down and,” Hiccup presses his lips together.

“And I wonder how she does it. How she can live without truly being, and how she seems to do it flawlessly.” Hiccup winds the string around the top, one loop after another after another after another. “I wonder how she can be so  _strong_  to push herself to live and not truly waste away.”

The top is standing on the floor, with Hiccup’s fingers keeping it up, pads pressing hard, and Hiccup pulls on the string.

As the top spins across the bedroom floor, Jack watches the young boy, remembering a short four years ago where a younger child looks up at him with a free smile, and wonders if a human’s life is so short that one this young, a bare eleven years old, can feel the world rest on his shoulders.

As the top slows, Hiccup goes back up and reaches for Jack’s outstretched hand. He comes closer and Jack parts his legs, allows the boy to come between them and rest his head on his shoulder.

“You are no less strong.” Jack traces the lines of Hiccup’s veins. “And you are not expected to be as strong. I am here to catch you at your weakest.”

* * *

Hiccup hates the lines of frustration, of resignation, of loss, etched in Jack’s face. He hates it more that he put them there. He imagines these lines as charcoal against paper and that he can smudge them away, one by one, until his hands are sullied and Jack’s face is free and happy and open.

“Hey,” Jack cuts in, “come back to me, yes?” He smiles brokenly.

Hiccup answers with his own, weak and small. “I’m sorry.” He reaches out and tries to erase the uneven black of worry across Jack’s forehead. Jack laughs weakly and the charcoal line grows thicker and blacker. The sides of Hiccup’s eyes burn.

Jack reaches for Hiccup’s hand and wraps both of his around it. The coldness of them causes Hiccup to shiver more, but neither he nor the older boy care. The end is inevitable and a little cold will neither help nor worsen Hiccup’s condition.

Hiccup pats the side of his bed in invitation and soon, Jack can feel the stutters in Hiccup’s breath across his collarbones. Hiccup’s body is nothing but heat and shivers, the occasional cough every minute or so. Hiccup raises his hands to splay them across Jack’s chest, and he can feel the quick  _bump-bump-bump_  of Jack’s heartbeat with his palm.

Hiccup breathes deeply and says, “I love you.” He feels Jack wrap his arms around him tight and he wonders if the other is trying to force himself to sleep.

(He is.)

(When he wakes up in the morning, Hiccup’s body is no longer hot and shivering.)

* * *

Jack breathes out deep, watching as his breath forms into a fog in front of his mouth. It reminds him of a smoker’s exhale and he grimaces. He shoots up in the air and jumps and skips across roofs. He had let the snow stop falling just a few minutes ago and the ground is a beautiful blanket of white. His feet are quick and light, barely making a sound against the surfaces. (But then again, would it have really mattered?)

He sees a park, beautiful in its winter state, and Jack jumps down from one platform to the next until his feet touch the powdery ground. Inside the park, he can see a pond frozen over. He flies to it and, landing on the ice, he can tell just how thin it is. He taps his staff against the pond, watching frost fly into the air, before he starts skating across the lake, laughing at the frost trailing behind him.

He looks back, a bright grin plastered on his face, and watches as the frost dances in the air. He moves the staff from side to side to form a zigzag following his path. He flies up again and perches on top of a branch. The height gives him a vantage point of the frost swirls decorating the lake’s surface, now completely frozen and hardened. He looks away, just in time to catch a set of green eyes focused on him.

Jack’s breath stutters and suddenly, all sound is drowned out, including his heartbeat, of which he still feels its quickened and irregular rhythm.

The wind whirls in solidarity and it rustles the other’s hair. If he ever thought to doubt those vivid green eyes, it would have been erased by the hair, the nose, the _freckles_ , the everything. He looks exactly the same, except, perhaps, a little older, and it makes him want to cry.

Jack doesn’t realize he’s floated down until his feet touch the ground and he walks to the other boy, seated on a bench with a bag nestled on his lap. The brunette looks up at him, eyes wide and curious, and it takes every little bit of Jack to not fall into him.

“Are you…Jack Frost?” the boy asks hesitantly.

Jack’s answering laugh is wet around the edges. A smile hobbles into his face. “Just call me Jack,” he breathes, eyes crinkling at the edges.

 


End file.
